I believe the reference to the fern on the graves was also meant to show that the ill informed overused quote that New Zealanders fought and died for the flag is incorrect.

I doubt it. Perhaps your reading of the reference is correct. But the logic of your argument appears faulty.

Nobody has presented any evidence that the soldiers followed a silver fern instead of the flag. After they died they didn't follow anything so the silver fern on their gravestone seems irrelevant to what they followed.

I have two sons , four nephews, brother in law, sister in law, father, father in law, five uncles who have served. They all say the Silver Fern and the Kiwi were the symbol that meant the most, the symbol that clearly showed who they were and why they served. The flag was only there at night and morning at bases, it never featured in the field or in harms way.

The alternative flags fern is (a) not silver but white, the same white as surrounding the red stars. (b) Is a poor representation of a silver fern and looks more like a skeleton. At least they could have had the fern design refined so it was high quality. But the flawed process didn't allow this. The All blacks silver fern was professional done and refined. If I was to chose between the two flags, it is no doubt to stay with the current one. Even the blue is a horrible light blue, and why are the stars red? If they want some link to the old one, why keep the red stars. It would be better to keep the blue of the old flag, and have white stars instead. In a month when it is over and people vote in teh old one, it will be 15 mil down the drain, and the designers get nothing. When infact it should have been design led, where professional designers should have been commissioned to design and chose the flag.

To me the flag is irrelevant either proposed or current, there are many relevant symbols of Aotearoa.

MikeRetired IT Manager. The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.

I think they could at least have done a fern with some sort of koru curl, and made it semi realistic, but I basically decided to vote against whatever flag they came up with on principle, cos that should have been the FIRST referendum, if they actually wanted people onside, and could have probably save a huge amount of money when the people voted against it back then (as it seems likely they will still now)

I fully feel that they will simply ignore the referendum anyway and force the new flag in, in spite of a decisive vote against it - just as the stupid Sue Bradford slapping law went through to criminalise parents across the country for disciplining their children...

This country need binding referendums (with a minimum %age of votes) and until they show they will listen to the people, they are not respected by the people who they supposedly represent.

This is exactly what gives people like Trump their knee jerk support, anti the incumbent, rather than pro the opposition!

Oh sure. People viewing a flag that gets confused with a vaguely similar one that has a different number of stars in a different color are surely going to be aware what genus of fern the stylised shape on a replacement represents...

Kiwis, on the other hand, are unique rather than merely a particular version of a common plant.

Oh sure. People viewing a flag that gets confused with a vaguely similar one that has a different number of stars in a different color are surely going to be aware what genus of fern the stylised shape on a replacement represents...

Kiwis, on the other hand, are unique rather than merely a particular version of a common plant.

The Canadian flag refutes everything you're saying.

As instantly recognisable as the Union Jack/Flag or Stars and Stripes, the maple less unique to Canada than the "silver" fern to NZ, widely used as a corporate logo before it became the flag.

The Kiwi is very symbolic of NZ from Military vehicles and craft to grocery items. It is still on every McLaren car and is the company logo. It does not however make the Siler Fern any less unique or symbolic of NZ

MikeRetired IT Manager. The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.

The Kiwi is very symbolic of NZ from Military vehicles and craft to grocery items. It is still on every McLaren car and is the company logo. It does not however make the Siler fern any less unique or symbolic of NZ

Some European tourists we met recently were intrigued by the many "short-beaked kiwis" sneaking around their campsite. It didn't take much to convince them that these were juveniles, and that as they matured their beaks would grow.

Yes - I agree about the symbolism of a stylised kiwi, but IMO it's a bit twee/cute for a national flag. A simple fern (or koru - but not like the Hundertwasser thing)) would be my choice.

Oh sure. People viewing a flag that gets confused with a vaguely similar one that has a different number of stars in a different color are surely going to be aware what genus of fern the stylised shape on a replacement represents...

Kiwis, on the other hand, are unique rather than merely a particular version of a common plant.

The Canadian flag refutes everything you're saying.

As instantly recognisable as the Union Jack/Flag or Stars and Stripes, the maple less unique to Canada than the "silver" fern to NZ, widely used as a corporate logo before it became the flag.

Not "everything." The Canadian flag doesn't refute the statement that "Kiwis ... are unique ..."

The Canadian flag is instantly recognisable because of familiarity not because most people would identify Canada from the flag if they had never seen it before. This applies to every flag I can think of. So it is almost certainly not an issue of how unique the symbol is to a country that determines whether it is successfully recognised on a flag.

On the other hand, Canada's flag could be the strongest evidence that a country can be recognised by a symbol. The maple tree was strongly associated with Canada at the time they introduced the new Canadian flag in 1965. That link is not as obvious today because the flag is so well known. Their maple syrup industry was world famous. I remember that as a young child in the 1960s I knew that maple syrup came from Canada before I even saw it or tasted it. However, I wouldn't have connected the syrup to the flag because I didn't know what a maple tree or leaf looked like.